...and missed.

You're changing tenses.

This is very cool. I like the idea of a race into space. I think all humanity profits by such high tech pushes into the unknown.

But, we're going to Mars!

Dubya said so.

Wow the moon. China said they will have the technology and ability to reach the moon by 2018.

Wow the US did it in 1969 with Apollo 11.

I guess China and Russia will be able to verify the US landing.

If you really study the computer technology in 1969 it makes the odds of reaching the moon a reach.

Did the US reach the moon or was it a hoax?

It was a hoax. I have that on good authority. BuffaloBob posted a YouTube video proving it.

When the Russians and Chinese get there and see the U.S. flag planted there in 1969, they will have to turn around and go home. We already claimed the moon and Mars too. Fuck em!!

Russia and Europe are teaming up to build a spaceship which will fly
astronauts to the moon

USA - Been there, done that.

We already claimed the moon and Mars too

The only thing that widely claimed, FuckWadThom, is Uranus.

It is too bad we will never see a Ball Bearing plant created in outer space. There and only there can a perfect ball bearing can be manufactured gaining YEARS more service out of machines that break down easy today.

Larry Mohr

I'm glad they are going to explore as I understand Obama wants to gut NASA. At least some of the human race is willing to look to the future.

Europe and others will live the dreams as the US regresses in the name of 'conservation' and income redistribution.

Larry, think about this: in outer space there is no friction so they won't need ball bearings up there anyway.

Ummmmmm You manufacture the ball bearings in space and ship them to people here on earth. Oh and why wouldn't You need ball bearings in outer space?? Doesn't a shaft need to turn on a machine?? without ball bearings it would seize up even in outer space. wouldn't wheels have to have ball bearings up in space too??

Larry Mohr

Larry, I was only pulling your leg a little, but you've got me thinking that we may be able to design machine for use in outer space that will not need to counteract friction, gravity, or corrosion. I'm going to go to work on that design as soon as I finish blogging, my origami, and my Asian porn downloads.

Larry-stay away fro talking reality to the Right. It's like throwing garlic to the vampires.

Fuckwadthomis mistaking gravity for friction. they're both part of devil worshipping science.

Been there done that--in 1969!

HA HA


Murphy

My bad NorthGuy3 I keep forgetting that the rights not as technically advanced as the Left is. After all the right chose Dubya for fuck sake. Can't be too technically advanced.

Larry Mohr

I'm glad someone is doing something. Where has our space program been the last several decades?

I think we need to privatize NASA. It might set us back a few years to have private organizations send up billionaires into space to fund their companies, but as the novely wears off the prices would have to drop, the businesses would have to find ways to lower the prices, and new technologies would be born.

Eventually competition would bring about investment into things like space hotels, which would bring more money into the system, which would lead to more innovation. This, I believe, is the only way we will start expanding the exploration of space beyond the moon, to places we should have been exploring more than a decade ago.

Even in weightlessness isn't there friction?? I mean You can't have a wheel on a shaft without some ball bearing system to counteract it. If You didn't that axle would just be bouncing up and down and sideways inside of the hole it rode upon. After a while it would create a depression making it heat up. You would still have to have ball bearings in outer space.

Larry Mohr

The problem INCRED is whiney libs who say things like, "Why do we spend money on NASA when we could use it down here?" What they really mean is giving the money to their constuents like the teachers union, La Raza, trial lawyers, and welfare queens.

Larry, think about it, once you got that shaft spinng correctly it would never stop. You could throw the bearings away then.

I certainly don't disagree, FWTHOM. And while I sympathize with their concerns in regard to the space program, I think that exploration is what makes us human. It has pushed us to the limits of Earth. Why not use that gift and push it beyond that? And if we privatize space exploration it's not like it will cost tax payers money anyways. It will originally be payed for by the billionaires who want to go into space. Then as the prices go down it will be the multimillionaires who can afford to go up and spend several days in a space hotel. And as prices go down, and more people are able to go, the money will roll in and the space industry will be able to expand out further. Then maybe the billionaires can take vacations on the moon. And so on...

"Even in weightlessness isn't there friction" -Larry

A little bit. As long as there is gravity involved there is a little bit of friction. Even the Earth causes friction on the moon because gravity pulls the portion of the moon closest to the earth towards the earth causing a slight bulge. As the moon rotates, the portion closest to the earth changes slightly and the bulge caused by the earth's gravity changes the shape of the moon. This causes friction within the moon, which has ineveitably caused the moon to keep the same face to the Earth at all times, which is called "tidal locking". This same principle can be applied to anything when gravity is involved. However, this effect is very small over large distances.

Been there done that--in 1969!

HA HA


Murphy

With German technology from 1945!

HA HA HA

Larry-
FYI, FWThom hasn't the slightest idea what he's talking about regarding friction.

(and as a side note, gravity per se has nothing to do with friction either)

BetelG it just doesn't make a lick of sense that lack of gravity would have any bearing(Excuse the obvious pun) on the friction on a shaft inside of a hole. I don't care if it's here on earth or up in space. That shaft is going to waller that hole out if it's not held in a stationary position. Also it's gonna move back and forth and up and down if it isn't bearinged. Just makes no sense at all know what I mean??

Larry Mohr

Larry-
Yes, I do. You have a good understanding of it. For example, if a shaft in on the surface of the Earth is positioned in a perfectly vertical position (ie, the shaft is pointed at the center of the Earth), then there is no torque provided by the gravitational force, but that turning shaft will still require bearings(or some equivalent) except in the most perfect conditions - which as we know, rarely if ever exist.

Even in weightlessness isn't there friction??

Yes. The friction is basically particles in the air which cause drag on a moving object. Even in a vacuum there's usually SOME small bits of matter.

Gravity just lowers the arc of travel on a thrown object. Without it, the object might never come back down, but it would slow considerably due to friction.

In space you would also have to deal with solar wind.

Ok is solar wind like wind we get out here in the flatlands of Kansas or something else??

Larry Mohr

Larry-
You know - and this is entirely beside the point - Kansas ain't that flat. It has actual rolling hills. You want flat - go to Amarillo, Texas. Now that's flat! Speaking of that, a few years ago some bored yet enterprising grad students somewhere decided to test the idea that Kansas really was "as flat as a pancake". The used computer aided modeling and determined that a pancake the size of Kansas looked like the freakin' Grand Canyon writ large - so Kansas is indeed much flatter than a pancake, but then so is pretty much every other region on Earth.

I thought Europe was already first to the moon? Seriously most of NASA's original engineers were European expats.

Boy now I did ot know that interesting. I know about Kansas having rolling hills in the eastern part but when You go west it REALLY flattens out. I don't mind too much. It's where My heart lies and that's where I will be buried one day.

Larry Mohr

Larry-
Now that I think about it, I've only been through eastern Kansas. I do share your love of the Great Plains, though. It's a curse/accident of birth, but I only feel right when I can see the curvature of the Earth on a clear day.

will this raice the euro

Been there done that--in 1969!

HA HA


Murphy

With German technology from 1945!

HA HA HA

Posted by fribo

......Which was all based on the work of Dr. Robert Goddard

"Eventually competition would bring about investment into things like space hotels, which would bring more money into the system, which would lead to more innovation."

Posted by Incredibleplum

Yep, yep, that's what we need: more crap in orbit.

Giant skyboards literally filling the sky advertising the latest in feminine hygiene. Can't wait for that.

Uhm, whatchugonnado about that little problem called gravity?

"Even in weightlessness isn't there friction..."

No such thing as weightlessness.

The concept of weight relates to the gravitational quotient of objects as they interact with each other proportional to the mass of each object and their distance from each other.

All matter has mass.

All matter has a gravitational quotient.

Gravity is a constant across the universe. That the effect of gravity drops of sharply in proportion to the mass of the object and distance from the object does not imply that there is no longer an effect.

"... in outer space there is no friction so they won't need ball bearings up there anyway."

Umm..yes, mechanical devices still have to overcome friction in space. If it is in a free-fall environment friction might be reduced where it might have been influenced by gravity, but devices that have parts interacting with other parts still have the same friction to overcome.

"Where has our space program been the last several decades? "

Well, it's been doing a lot but not enough in my opinion, by any stretch, especially in the manned exploration of the solar system. The shuttle is a remarkable machine and has a huge number of accomplishments to its record and has flown several hundred people into space. The work done has covered a multitude of fields including medicine, materials science, astronomy, meteorology, etc etc etc. But a lot of the reason that we didn't keep going to the moon and beyond is that a lot of people in the US lost interest in space exploration after the first flag was planted on the moon on Apollo 11...which is inexplicable to me, because those first steps were a beginning, really, rather than an end. I never understood why people thought space exploration is boring...I can't think of anything more exciting, frankly.

Which is why I did my undergrad in aerospace engineering, though I'm not working in the field today.

"I think we need to privatize NASA. "

There is certainly a lot of money to be made in space and resources beyond our wildest imagination out there. And there is a lot of commercialization already going on. But some of what needs to be done isn't ... and won't be ... financially profitable. That's why some of it (especially the original research types of programs) really won't fall into the domain of private companies. Hotels in space may be cool and eventually commercially viable but they really don't do much to advance humanity as we venture beyond the cradle of earth.

Plus a couple of other points... 1) NASA isn't just the space program. The first A stands for "aeronautics" and NASA is responsible for a great deal of work on that front too; 2) private industry is involved big time with NASA projects...big space programs create a lot of jobs at numerous contractors and tends to spark economic growth wherever these contractors are. NASA's budget isn't all that large in the scheme of things...and not one penny of it is spent in space, it's all spent right here on the ground.

Before a manned spaceflight to Mars should be attempted, a permanent base on the moon should be developed. This will provide the necessary experience to operate safely for long periods of time.

This country spends more on pizza than our space program. Prioritization is not one our strengths.

That the effect of gravity drops of sharply in proportion to the mass of the object

Gravity's force on an object is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two objects.

F grav = 1/d^2

At the time, Germany was highly interested in American physicist Robert H. Goddard's research. Before 1939, German scientists occasionally contacted Goddard directly with technical questions. After that, things got rather tense. Wernher von Braun used Goddard's plans from various journals and incorporated them into the building of the Aggregat 4 (A-4) series of rockets, better known as the V-2.[4] In 1963, von Braun reflected on the history of rocketry, and said of Goddard's work: "His rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles." [2] Goddard confirmed his work was used by von Braun when, after the war ended, Goddard inspected captured German V-2s, and recognized many components which he had invented.

... Goddard was a one-man operation who worked on rockets during his spare time. Had the allies seen the value of his work as much as the Germans did might of had an interesting impact on WWII.

"The shuttle is a remarkable machine "

The Space Transportation System (STS), which includes, in gross terms, the shuttle, the main fuel tank, and the SRBs, was designed and built on a shoestring budget. It costs upwards of 500 million dollars to refurb STS for each launch. Imagine taking apart and rebuilding your car each time you came home from a trip.

I refer to the shuttle as the Flying Yugo.

To date, the shuttle fleet has experienced a 40%loss (that is, two shuttles), out of 123 missions - that's a fairly high failure rate.

Considering the on-going problems with the tiles, it is amazing that there haven't been more losses.

Sure, there have been enormous successes. But STS is extremely limited in capability and will never be more than a LEO taxi for passengers and some packages. It's really kind of sad that this is the best the US has been able to field for manned launch systems since the demise of Apollo over 30 years ago.

Interesting that Orion, the US's next big push for manned space flight, goes retro in that, though a bit bigger and certainly more sophisticated in computing power alone than Apollo, will be a disposable system, with the possible exception of the SRBs.

No Vipers.

No X-Wings.

No 1701s.

I thought Europe was already first to the moon?

Our nazi scientists beat the Russian nazi scientists.

And unless the godless commies and euro-weenies are planning on setting up some free love commune on the moon, why bother, beyond bragging rights. Either go to Mars or keep on with those nifty robots like NASA has and explore more places cheaper.

Zot,

A high failure rate, compared to what?

Northguy,

They need to use the moon to figure out how to grow plants and to use as a construction station for the bigger ships, which they'd like to build in space so that they don't have to launch them from Earth's gravitational field. They also just need to learn a lot about the mechanics of living somewhere else before they go to Mars, because if anything goes wrong on Mars, it's 6 months away and everybody dies....So, there are very practical reasons to colonize the mooon.

"A high failure rate, compared to what?"

A 1.6% failure rate (or flip it and you have a 98.4% success rate) is unacceptable in just about anything.

If you crashed and destroyed a vehicle every 60 or so times you drove, that would be a rather high failure rate, and quite costly.

If you had 1000 aircraft in the air daily across the US, 16 of those aircraft would be crashing daily.

Granted, this is space travel, in a sense, and is inherently more dangerous than airline travel (though an altitude of 200 to 300 miles above the Earth is kind of a stretch to be considered as space).

If you crashed and destroyed a vehicle every 60 or so times you drove, that would be a rather high failure rate, and quite costly.

If you had 1000 aircraft in the air daily across the US, 16 of those aircraft would be crashing daily.

You can't compare. (I hate saying "apples and oranges"). You make the assumption that there is one set failure rate for everything.

Every year, there is at least a 10% crop failure rate in this country. Is that unacceptable? In my business, there is a 66% failure rate! (only about 1 in 3 holes we drill will produce oil) Is that unacceptable?

Having no benchmark, it is difficult to say what is and isn't unacceptable. Yes, we could probably make space travel 99.9% successful, but the cost would be prohibitive. Surely you are familiar with the concept of diminishing returns?

Zot,

How many other machines take off, go into orbit with enough cargo capacity and power to help build things, and then land on runways. I think an unfair comparison to other simpler tasks....

You are right, Goatman. The comparison was to a degree unfair. Still, this country was capable of designing and fielding a much better system instead of the Flying Yugo. I can guarantee you that the men and women that were in far greater danger than NASA and the guvmint ever let on.

I was most disappointed when:

1) Algore chose the X-33 VentureStar as the only SSTO vehicle to be developed out of the stable of possibles, all of which were viable; and,

2) X-33 development was ultimately cancelled.

Zot,

But they've already decided to scrap the shuttle and replace it....said replacement is in process...

"But they've already decided to scrap the shuttle and replace it....said replacement is in process..."

Posted by jonryker

STS is reaching EOL. In fact, it is already beyond recommended EOL.

STS is not being replaced. You are probably referring to the "new" Ares launch system and the new Orion crew exploration vehicle in development by LockMart.

I put the word new in quotes for Ares because what is being done for this medium lift capability is an adaptation of what is currently being used for STS. The main fuel tank and SRB configuration will be reused with Orion being plunked on top of the main fuel tank.

Note though that the Ares/Orion combo is not a reusable system (with the exception of the recoverable SRBs).

Still no SSTO, and still no heavy lift capability a la Saturn V or Energia.

, this country was capable of designing and fielding a much better system instead of the Flying Yugo

Indeed. NASA should've designed two systems instead of a "one size fits all" shuttle. They need a heavy lift, unmanned reusable shuttle and a personnel/light cargo shuttle. What a waste to send up the STS to the ISS for crew change and groceries.

"Indeed. NASA should've designed two systems instead of a "one size fits all" shuttle. They need a heavy lift, unmanned reusable shuttle and a personnel/light cargo shuttle. What a waste to send up the STS to the ISS for crew change and groceries."

Posted by goatman

Exactly my thoughts!

The five most important pioniers in rocket science were:

Hermann Oberth
Robert H. Goddard
Konstantin Tsiolkovski
Johannes Winkler
Wernher von Braun

The five most important pioniers in rocket science were:

Don't forget Sir Isaac Newton without whom there wouldn't be the third law of motion that makes rockets possible.

(OK, we'd have it, but it would not be defined. *grin*)

Don't forget:

Flash Gordon

Buck Rogers

And of course, even before the pronouncement of John F. Kennedy were the immortal words of Ralph Kramden:

"To the Moon, Alice!"

(Now that would be a great name for the next moon lander: The Alice. The Command orbiter could be The Ralph.)

Hey Norton, I got something to show you....ha HA!

"Every year, there is at least a 10% crop failure rate in this country. Is that unacceptable? In my business, there is a 66% failure rate! (only about 1 in 3 holes we drill will produce oil) Is that unacceptable?"

Goatman, that is such a ridiculous analogy to win a bad argument. The shuttle failure rate is horrendous in the amount of money spent to prep it and launch it along with the training involved and loss of uniquly skilled people. Oh and of course the shuttle itself and it's expensive payload. I think commercial and defense satellites are no longer flown on the shuttle anymore as it's to only focus on the ISS. Risk too high of losing the satellites in another disaster. Forget about insurance on the puppies after Columbia blew up.

The only reason the shuttles are even flying now is because the components for the international space station were designed and built according to the shuttle dimensions. If this wasn't the case they'd be grounded right now.

"Every year, there is at least a 10% crop failure rate in this country. Is that unacceptable? In my business, there is a 66% failure rate! (only about 1 in 3 holes we drill will produce oil) Is that unacceptable?"

Goatman, that is such a ridiculous analogy to win a bad argument. The shuttle failure rate is horrendous in the amount of money spent to prep it and launch it along with the training involved and loss of uniquly skilled people. Oh and of course the shuttle itself and it's expensive payload. Commercial and defense satellites are no longer flown on the shuttle anymore. Risk too high of losing the satellites in another disaster. Forget about insurance on the puppies after Columbia blew up.

The only reason the shuttles are even flying now is because the components for the international space station were designed and built according to the shuttle dimensions. If this wasn't the case they'd be grounded right now.

Goatman, that is such a ridiculous analogy to win a bad argument. The shuttle failure rate is horrendous in the amount of money spent to prep it and launch it along with the training involved and loss of uniquly skilled people. Oh and of course the shuttle itself and it's expensive payload. Commercial and defense satellites are no longer flown on the shuttle anymore. Risk too high of losing the satellites in another disaster. Forget about insurance on the puppies after Columbia blew up.

The only reason the shuttles are even flying now is because the components for the international space station were designed and built according to the shuttle dimensions. If this wasn't the case they'd be grounded right now.

Maybe you should've read the following retorts before you got so "furio"us